Just curious...

I remember back in the day, cabal wars raged all across the levels, with lowbies in the teens assisting in retrievals, or scouting ahead during raids. I understand that there's fewer players, so the wars aren't like the old days, but still.. When the hell did cabals start making the requirements hit the 30s, as if joining them is some super elite thing?

I could understand Battle, for instance, wanting it's new members to have, say.. truesight, as it's hard to fight a war on magic when all a mage needs to do is cast invis - but the other cabals? Come on, guys.. people complain about ranking enough as it is, and making such a high prerequisite (like level 35 or 40) is fairly.. I dunno.. sadistic? This game is ultimately fun and the sooner you can be rewarded for your roleplay (i.e., cabal powers, comradery) the better.

Just a little rant.
N.

Side note - Some of my caballed chars:
Don't remember name - got inducted at level 12.. by CuChulain on his way to the Blood Island to raid.
Barsak - got inducted into Entropy by Felyne at level 12 or 13 while ranking on brownies.
Alcsidd - got inducted into Knights at level 11
Iomahk - Arbiters, level 14 or 15
Noldruk got inducted into Tribunal at 15.

I've had enough experience leading Cabals to know that every hoop a leader makes you jump through is designed (in some way, shape or form) to measure dedication to the character, cause and Cabal. If that hoop is an interview, a trip to the Lyceum, or a certain level, so be it.

I also know that interviews, for the most part, usually take at least 30 minutes to conduct.

So if an interview is required for induction (which it is and should be IMHO), then interviewing and inducting every potential applicant would be a huge time drain for a leader, and would drastically cut into the amount of time spent participating in other, possibly more fun, Cabal activities.

Certain minimum requirements help reduce the potential that you'll induct someone who will delete within a week.

What are the correct requirements? I look for a combination of things as an Imm: level, hours, role, PK ratio, description. Generally, these four things say more about the longevity potential of a character than a 30-minute interview will. Since mortal leaders don't have access to that information, they have to set their own requirements.

In general, I'm fine with that. One of the perks of being a leader, I suppose. That being said, I have no problems if a leader wants to go the other way, throw all that crap out the window and induct willy-nilly, as long as they're willing to deal with the fallout.

So to answer the question below regarding inducting ten then booting the bottom eight, go for it (my opinion only). Just make sure you're up front with the characters involved from the get-go, and make sure you're active enough to actually police your policy.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

I agree with most of what you said. I think the problem is these days that most leaders won't even consider you until you hit 30ish. I don't mind jumping through lots of hoops at lvl 15, just give me that option. Also I think a lot of leaders aren't using hoops as a way to prove worth, but more of a way to avoid dealing with applicants for as long as possible. There needs to be a better balance, and it needs to be more newbie friendly is all I'm saying. I think the Imms publicly endorsing that yes it's ok to induct a level 15 then more leaders might relax some.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

One factor in all of this is that it's about a thousand times easier to level than back then. When I started playing CF I played the same (0-penalty, FWIW) character for hundreds of hours, tried like hell to level, and never saw level 25. In an environment like that, of course inductions have to take place lower.

Now I think you'd have to try to NOT hero in 100 hours.

My rose-tinted glasses remember it being pretty easy to level. What factors are you thinking contributed to harder leveling? It seemed that mobs were dumber and more tightly packed back in the day. If your group could take out challengers... you could rank from 1-51 in FoN. Was it the PK? XP penalty from any death? Stacking XP penalties? I would agree that the stacking XP penalties could lead to badness, but I always felt back in the day that if you dedicated yourself to leveling and little else that it was at least as fast as today.

>My rose-tinted glasses remember it being pretty easy to
>level.

Depends on how far back you're going. 1994 when you're losing 15k xp (stackable) with every death, including PK? Hell no.

>What factors are you thinking contributed to harder
>leveling? It seemed that mobs were dumber and more tightly
>packed back in the day.

Dumber, sure. Tightly packed... maybe, maybe not. If you were good-align, sure, up to a point.

You also have to consider that there weren't a lot of options. FoN or nothing isn't a great set of choices, especially when you're wiping out the anti-rangers in one minute (for 200xp/apiece... a little more for Bqiz-guys and Tulpebb and Iwspeal, but not much) and waiting fifteen for the three lowbie groups killing other kinds of mobs in the same area to finish up and leave.

The counter to the dumber thing is that mobs in dangerous areas or with dangerous specs are worth more XP now, etc., whereas back in the day level and alignment was it.

For most levels there also wasn't really anything you could level on back in the day that had any kind of vulnerabilities, either. Today, a high level group with the right weapons/spells can make a killing doing extra damage on Calandaryl, or in Aran'Gird, etc.

There's a lot of different group combinations/synergies now that there weren't back then. Back in the day, if you were a class that had dodge and parry, that was as good as it was going to get for a tank. You pretty much needed someone with sanc and healing in the group to get XP too. Now? Well, your all-warrior group should get XP different places than a healer/transmuter/ranger group, but the options are there.

Incidentally, did you ever hero an evil in the pre-Kiadana era? Ugggggh. You pretty much were killing the two high level New Thalos shopkeepers for about 200 xp a crack, and they were roughly as tough as the storm giant commander, plus sanc. Then you'd wait 15 minutes because there was no way you were clearing everyone out of NT for a repop. God forbid anyone PK you or your cleric screw up and let you die... you're going to need to clear the area 38 times to make that death up.

Don't totally discount the impact of exploration/observation/imm-awarded/commerce/quest/etc. XP, either. Even characters that aren't actively seeking these kinds of XP are probably scoring up a bit of it as they barter to heal between runs (couldn't do that back in the day, either...) or as they walk through most of a certain explore area that's a pretty popular XP spot for the first time.

>If your group could take out
>challengers... you could rank from 1-51 in FoN.

When everything was going right, you could level a good-align group pretty fast at any level... but I don't think in any case that was ever faster than now.

It's lots of things that each individually don't mean a lot, but taking together is a pretty big difference. I'll go through some of these.

>Was it the PK?

Definitely a factor. No distention and if you go back far enough, no heart-exploding code (plus the fact that people would get into 150k xp debts and think, why ever try to level again) meant that if ten people were in your range, eight of them never seriously intended to level ever again. What were they doing instead? Trying to kill your ass.

It was pretty rare to get together a group that had zero fear of PK while levelling, unless you were the only people on or damn near... and a group that good would level crazy fast today, too.

>XP penalty from any death?

Definitely.

>Stacking XP penalties?

Yup. As mentioned above, this is kind of a double whammy because not only can you get into a deep debt that's hard to drag out of, but other people are having the same problem and deciding to spend their login hunting you instead. Since there's often 1-2 places you could level, they WILL find you, and fast.

>I
>would agree that the stacking XP penalties could lead to
>badness, but I always felt back in the day that if you
>dedicated yourself to leveling and little else that it was at
>least as fast as today.

I think a lot of people feel that way, but looking at the numbers it just doesn't bear it out. I've had groups in the relatively modern era get over 3-4 levels/hour for the last ten levels. FoN era, getting a level an hour for the back ten was doing pretty well.

Depends how far you go back. When I started playing there was no xp loss for PK, 97 maybe? I found it much easier back then, simply because there were tons more people to group with. Yes PK was a pain, but it actually made ranking more interesting because you had to be on your toes. I mean now adays I have maybe 5-10 people to group with, back then it was like 20-25. Also there are so many conflicting cabals, religions, etc that even if do find others of your alignment half the time their conflicting ideals rule them out.
Also you have all the solo rankers now which just sucks for non tanks. I swear half the tanks I ask to group with are solo rankers because of how hard skills are to improve now. Muhadin's religion isn't helping either where you have a whole religion which will only travel with thier own small subset. Seriously depending on what you play finding a group can seriously suck now that CF is pretty empty.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>Also you have all the solo rankers now which just sucks for
>non tanks. I swear half the tanks I ask to group with are solo
>rankers because of how hard skills are to improve now.

This is way overstated. Not a lot of people are actually soloing in the mid levels. At the very low levels I'd say more people do because just doing a small fraction of the quests available from 1-15 or so puts you through that range.

To some degree you want conflicting things. You want that level 15 warrior to be caballed and running around doing cabal stuff, but at the same time if you ask that guy to group and he says no, I bet you're assuming it's because he's solo ranking. He might be running around trying to get into a cabal. He might be trying to kill people. He might just not be in any hurry to level.

Could be true, but I recently played a neutral non-tank character and getting a group would take forever because at least half of them would tell me they travel alone, some were because they were Muhadin. Most however either outright told me they are in training, or the most popular was response was I travel alone. So I'm not really assuming that's what they were doing they outright told me and this wasn't just 1-15 this was 1-30. Now if it's this bad for a neutral I cringe to play one with even less options. As for the low level cabal'd characters not traveling, I don't ever remember that being a huge problem back in the day. In fact learning was always encouraged by older guildies unless a big raid was on.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

If you just want to get into a cabal and then level to hero as fast as you can without doing any cabal stuff, how much does it really matter if you do that mad levelling pre-induction or post-induction?

I feel like you want contradictory things.

Options aren't always the best thing. If I'm levelling a paladin, I'll probably take dead weight good-aligned thirds with me if they ask. A gnome shifter that's probably (playing the odds) going to just try to murder me at hero better have some cool-ass RP or some other angle that makes me think he's going to actually be fun to group with if he wants to ride my XP train. This could just be me.

No that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm saying it would be nice if I could get inducted into a cabal so I have fun things to do while I'm waiting hours to find a group or if I get bored with ranking, etc. Cabals having higher limits makes people power game harder just to get into the Cabal.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Every single area I wrote (FoN, Shadar Logoth, Aridhol) was geared almost solely around problems that I had faced with levelling. Hell, the reason the gnolls in old-school FoN were the level they were was a salute to the place where I levelled (with Truck) from level 22ish to level 30ish - the place that is now the Feanwyn Weald (I don't remember what it used to be called). There were two level 28-31 gnolls there, and a level 25 green dragon. We'd kill those three things, go sit in shadow grove (or the troll den - opal rings FTW!), lather, rinse, repeat.

Let recount just how hard it was to level with Twist:
Level 1-5: Mud School/Mob Factory. No real problem.
Level 6-8: Sewers, killing homonculus's and ettins. Got pk'd at level 6, lost exp (not 15K, probably 5K), got semi-full-lootzored.
Level 8-16ish: Wyvern Tower and Elemental Canyon. Was my first time "east" of Midgaard (I learned the beauty and wonder of pink ice rings in the dwarven daycare much later in life )
Level 17-20ish: I don't really remember how I got exp during these levels. I do remember being part of a MASSIVE semi-lowbie group that went to Mahn-tor. I forget who organized it, but you had me, who was in Master, a couple of Shadows, a bunch of Justice, two BattleRagers, and a few uncaballeds. We got smoked by the level 30 antipaladin mob there.
Level 20ish-23ish: Harpies (bigtime dangerous, died a bunch of times, which is why I switched to levelling with Truck as stated above).
Level 22/23-30ish: See above.
Level 30ish-35ish: Ancient Dragons in (oldschool) dragon tower.
Level 35ish-40ish: Undead in (the then brand-spankin' new area) Arboria
Level 40ish-50: This is where/when evils really started to level LAMMF and us poor goodies were screwed, because they could kill the Tar Valon shopkeepers. The rest of us poor saps were stuck trying to maybe kill arborian lich guildmasters for little/no exp. Finally Cador (I think? maybe Lancelot) discovered that the two shoppies in New Thalos were level 60 and evil. NepDaev covered how hard they were to kill and the assorted pains we had to go through to kill enough to level.

Keep in mind also that back then you had stuff like global summon and eyes of intrigue - so even if there HAD been nice remote areas to get exp like there are now, it wasn't like you were safe (or even relatively safe) there. Eight-man Shadow ganksquads were not uncommon back then.

Thankfully back then there was no agedeath or Twist would surely have age-died before imming. At the time, college had just gotten done and I had all day to #### around. Right around when Twist hit level 25ish, I would wake up at about 10:30 in the morning and pretty much MUD straight through until about 2am. Every day, for about 2 months.

So yeah, when I hear people talk about how hard it is to level up now, I have a hard time crying for them. One recently-deleted arial warrior I can think of went from level 1 to 51 in roughly one week, real time. Bleh.

Some things that Twist and Nep didn't already grab:

1) People often cite NPCs with more capabilities without mentioning any of the impact of additional PC abilities. How many NPCs wear enough armor to deflect blows reliably? What about Edges that strengthen abilities used during ranking? Remember trying to find a group as a pre-form (or even minor-form-only) shifter, pre-elemental conjurer, lowbie transmuter, or an orc before the last 5 or so revamps? Need to use a spear for tanking purposes, but still want some offense? Need full gains at level even though you're down some CON? Enjoying the faster regeneration rates that went in a couple years ago? Ever get stuck with the guy who didn't use a stat roller and effectively rolled (max-20)? All characters are tougher than they were back then, and "bad" groupmates are a lot tougher.

2) Beyond that, the sheer variety of ranking options now vs. then means you can often pick one that's well-suited to you. Need to rank outdoors? Don't want to rank outdoors because you know a ranger and a druid are around? Have a Tribunal-ish role that precludes ranking on city-themed NPCs? Want to rank and work on Offhand Disarm at the same time? Have an especially tough group and want extra-tough opponents and the high gains associated with them? You have options. It's not "Well, can only do Kiadana for the next 12 levels. Hope no one is there already."

3) More areas also means more equipment, which means the quality of a high-end suit has steadily climbed. Want 25 damroll just from armor? Much easier now than it used to be. Want an item that gives you a little healing as you go? Many more options than there used to be. Etc. Lost some stuff to a loot? You can often buy better stuff now than you could easily fight for back then.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I don't know if I agree with the easier to gear. Killing the red dragon, two spitfire cloaks, 2 opal rings and you were all set back in the day. Now you have to worry about dex more, +hit more, etc.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

And I'm not convinced it would be worse than it was (for pure levelling) back in the day. There just also happen to be some better options available now.

I mean, if you geared pure dam at the expense of dex back in the day, you would dodge for ass but a lot of characters might not care. Now, you'd dodge and evade for ass, but a lot of characters might still not care. Fire A-P doesn't need your silly evade. He doesn't care that his hitroll has trouble with the armor that the mobs he's killing aren't wearing. He's got 50 cc's of DAMAGE!

I don't know if I agree with the easier to gear. Killing the red dragon, two spitfire cloaks, 2 opal rings and you were all set back in the day. Now you have to worry about dex more, +hit more, etc.

... except it's easier, since you don't even need a repop to get two opal-ring-equivalents, and you can spend a few seconds to use Outfit to at least get something out of slots you probably left blank then. With even a couple gold in the bank, you can do much better than the gear you're describing without having to fight anything.

All that +dam still raises your dam. How did that get worse?

Dexterity has always impacted how well you dodged. If you went into battle with a 10 DEX, you were either asking for trouble or you weren't tanking. If you aren't tanking now, why specifically is DEX so important to you?

Hitroll still has its old role of making sure you don't "miss". How often has that happened to you past the initial levels? It now additionally helps you penetrate armor. How much armor is your average ranking NPC wearing? Why are you worried about a high hitroll, then?

In contrast, you can cover most of your slots fairly instantly, giving you a non-zero chance to stop a blow that would previously have hit you. How is that worse?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I don't know, I noticed ranking on all mobs with a recent AP attempt that if I didn't have over 15ish+ hit I missed a noticeable amount with 95% weapon skill. As soon as I got like 20+ hit I never really saw misses, and I never remember having to worry with that back in the day. From what I remember most of the mobs weren't armored, eg. elves of eregion.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Nothing's changed with any of that code, FYI.

I agree. I played for 2 years before I ever topped level 25, and 4 years before I saw hero range. Granted, I sucked mightily (and still do!) but especially for caballed characters the frenetic pace of cabal wars and ever-present gank squads made it very challenging to carve out time for leveling or to find areas of relative safety.

These days, getting into the low 20s is pretty easy. Depending on the character, it can still be troublesome in spots above that, but it is overall much easier and less time consuming to hero now than it was back then.

Having only been inducted into two Cabal's (Tribs and Imps) I can honestly say that the leaders of most Cabal's are being too fussy in regards to induction.

The question here is: What is the harm in inducting younger/less experienced players?

It seems to me the lower levels of the cabal's are viewed as something greater than what they are. E.g what can a magistrate do outside of juridiction? What does a bloodoath do?

You might say they can bring a bad name, but I doubt many would try. Beyond that, the real reputation of the Cabal rests on its more experienced members. They are rewarded accordingly with more extensive powers.

You also might say it takes too much time inducting players. If you think it takes too much time then YOU should consider playing a diferent role. You are the leader of the cabal not the vindicator/drillmaster/warmaster. Batch process, nominate a time for multiple inductions. How do you expect someone to stay on duty in Seatrynn Modan for any length of time if you're not willing to take some time out to interview?

Unfortunately I've only been in empire and spire so I cant speak for other cabals.

I tried rager, learnt the story and had an ok ratio against mages considering I couldnt see invis without preps. I had recommendations and interviews on tactics all of which were recieved well. Word spread that I hated mages, I was brazen about it. Never got that induction but I did get my ass handed to me by groups of mages and mage sympathisers drastically dropping my ratio and con til it seemed pointless. I still to this day have no idea why I wasn't inducted, or even interveiwed - no note, nothing.

I can speak for both empire and the spire which allowed me to develop as an rper and as a player in general through exposure to some great and amazing cabal buddies. I never made it past magistrate with my first caballed player, but you know what? He is still my favourite because of all the great things I learnt.

Battle has become just stupid to get into. It's become mainly a club of the same half dozen players. It's like you need 40 recommendations, memorize every name on the pillar, kill 50 mages, be able to recite 4 hours of village history and then just hang around for 3 months. I'm exagerating of course, but it's really not that far off.
My last villager was Broxx and they made me jump through hoops for over a month, and I think they would have kept me jumping but Thror god bless him titled me his champion. Then suddenly I was considered inductable, heh.
I think Imms need to reset the precident for lower levels getting in and less gruelling inductions and easier boots. That's the only way some of these leaders are going to start letting regular folk back in. The Cabal wars could really use the infusion, because from what I see they are pretty sad right now.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

I had a similar experience way back when I played Brakak. I worked at getting inducted for at least a month with no success. Then I got Thror's tat and titled First of Thror, and the next RL day, I was eagerly SOUGHT by the village and warmly inducted. Funny how that works.

I think cabals should be:

easy in.

WAY easy out.

hard to get back in, but not impossible.
(probably like may cabals are now, with stupid "get recomendations before the leader will acknowledge you exists" and "recite the lyceum word for word" and "lvl up to lvl 35 before I will talk to you" rules and requirements.)

still way easy out.


People play this game to have fun.

Sure. There are people like Incognito who think the ONLY fun thing in cabal life, and the only thing existing in cabal life, is the raid-retrieve dynamic. Which leads them to only want people in the cabal who have the time to have multiple-hour logins and who have the ability to effect that raid-retrieve dynamic.


but, I don't think most people are like that. Most people understand that being caballed is alot more than the powers that come with it, or the mindless raid-retrieve cycle. Most people (I want to believe) actually dig the *ROLEPLAY*. The interaction with other people, both in cabal and outside cabal.

In my opinion, the greatest thing about a cabal is "cb". It allows people of different levels, roles, inclinations, and whatever to mix and interact. If they took away all of every cabal's powers, I would still join cabals with my characters because they help give direction and shape to my roles, and also mean better IC interactions with others.



In this scenario, even those people who delete mid 20's/mid 30's/mid 40's contribute. How? Well, if they rp, and interact, they are contributing to the rp of others.

And, if they REALLY just aren't cut out for it, fine. Uninduct them.

But, that shouldn't be a deletion sentence, as it has most often been in cf since cabals started.

People want to play a role. oftentimes their role requires being in a cabal. Sometimes they will make a mistake or two or three (maybe playing drunk one night, having slow reaction times, pissing someone off) and get uninducted.

In the past, that person has almost always deleted.

But, give them hope that being re-inducted isn't impossible, but is even achievable without months or struggle, and those characters will stick around.

And cabals will be better for them. Ic characters who have grown through those experiences are more fully developed, than the cookie cutter, in many ways.




Or....


You can just do what Incog does, and think the way he thinks.


"I don't care if he has an rl job, I don't want anything to do with that character unless they spend real-time weeks proving to me that they can help me in cabal raid-retrieve. Anything less is useless to me, so BEGONE!"

nt

If, as a leader I put it in my role that I'm going to say, induct 10 people every week and then kick out all but the best 2, would that be allowed, or would I quickly end up being un-leadered?

Do you really honestly think that inducting ten and kicking out 8 is an improvement on inducting 2 that showed persistency pre-induction?

You are going to have a LOT of bitching from the 8 in question.

If it wasn't for Cabals allowing low levels entrance back in the day, I probably would not have stayed with CF. Nothing helps a new player more then being surrounded by veterans who have a good RP reason to help them(for the most part). While I still had to jump through alot of hoops with my lvl 11 invoker, it taught me a ton about the game just from trying to get inducted. It also kept me interested and felt like I was part of something bigger.

Cabals right now are way too elitest and I'm not sure if it's the Imms or just elitest snobs getting leadership positions that is the problem. I could almost swear that a few years back the Imms went through a period where they told leaders they needed to stop inducting lowbies. It also might be that they don't want to be bothered with lowbies who might delete. I think the problem is, that instead of these ridicilous 5 hours worth of interviews that seems to be the norm, let the inductee do all the work. Instead of grilling them on every aspect of their character for 2 hours let them run quests that are meaningful to the cabal, and write notes answering questions. If they screw up to much just kick them or punish them.

Bring back all level Cabal wars!

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

I do actually do the kinds of things you are talking about, and let people write notes so as to cut down on the need for our paths to cross repeatedly, etc.

I really don't see what is so tough about being sent to the Lycaeum to find out a bit about a cabal. I still end up going to the Lycaeum with my characters today for this reason. It isn't hard, and I'd argue that it actually gives new players a lot more insight into the world of cf.

>I do actually do the kinds of things you are talking about,
>and let people write notes so as to cut down on the need for
>our paths to cross repeatedly, etc.
>
>I really don't see what is so tough about being sent to the
>Lycaeum to find out a bit about a cabal. I still end up going
>to the Lycaeum with my characters today for this reason. It
>isn't hard, and I'd argue that it actually gives new players a
>lot more insight into the world of cf.

The only problem with that, which is the case with alot of villagers - what if your character can't read? I've always hated the "required reading" clause for joining a cabal - For instance, I had a char once who, just from memory of my other chars, recounted the story of the village as posted in the Lyceum, only I changed it to fit the fact that it was handed down generation to generation from those old times. So I purposely fudged some of the questions. ("What animal did BoltThrower see?" - "Eh.. a shaggy hornfoot, as story goes.") What happened? This dude gigged me on it, basically saying "No! You're wrong! Go read it again!" I had to *ARGUE* the point for some time, and among other problems with the Commander at the time, ended up getting inducted by Kastellyn - Why? Because the leader had chiselled into his mind exactly how everyone should respond. What level everyone should be, what they should do - Hoops are one thing, but if you have to count backwards from 1,572 the number of rotations the hoop spins.. in swahili - It makes the whole interaction.. well.. no fun.

N.

Same kind of experience with Battle. Since it's the same 6 people running the cabal, they are way to rigid in their thinking from what I've seen. I've also seen this with some of the other cabals as well.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Stop trying to put words in my mouth.

I never said that raid-retrieve was the only fun thing about cabals. In fact, the main reason that I sometimes go uncaballed is the ganky'ness that can arise from raids, since there is a degree of obligation about defending despite bad odds.

Similarly, I don't see that an rl job is relevant to induction. If you have an rl job, your character should likely last longer in real time. So it takes more rl time to get inducted, and you get more rl time to benefit once you are in. The only circumstances that you lose out under are if you delete in fewer hours than the average person that doesn't have a job. If you plan to get into a cabal in 10 hours, and then delete in 30, then I don't see it as a great loss to the game that you don't join a cabal.

That's my opinion. How about respecting it even if you disagree, instead of becoming insulting and then claiming I'm saying things that I haven't. Again.

******************

Firstly, you have lots of applicants, and can't take them all, so you need a broad way to slim them down quickly.

Secondly, there's not a great deal of point wasting time on some guy that will be too weak to retrieve.

Thirdly, you need someone that will at least be able to play a part in defenses of the item of power (where most raiders will be heroes).

Fourthly, I can't be arsed spending my time interviewing people that haven't shown at least a modicum of persistency. I don't want to spend an hour with each guy just to have them auto-delete.

Want into an easy cabal? Then pick a relatively easy cabal.

**********************


Let's see. The first and fourth are only about you not wanting to spend time interviewing.

The second and third are only about raid-retrieve.


You've given four reasons why lvl limits are a good thing, but 50% are about raid-retrieve, and 50% is about you not wanting to spend time in interview actually rping with people if they aren't going to stay around for raid-retrieve.


Yeah. Shame on me for jumping to the conclusion that I jumped to.


*SNIRT*

You lower the bar, people begin to see being caballed as a right and not the privilege it is. Why try to raise your own personal bar if you don't have to?

My focal point for my feelings is the fort. I loved the inception of the fortress. It will always have a special place in my heart (as far as game #### goes). But I can't stand it now. I am ashamed to say it, but I feel like the die hard rager players from years ago bitching about BATTLE. I look at the fort and I just think "pussies". It drives me bat####. Yes, this is a game and a game is about fun. But the game is not "do whatever pleases you so you have a good time". If playing a die-hard evil ass kicking goodie rain or shine(or bad odds) isn't fun for you, then don't piss and moan because its not something you want it to be. Generally playing a fort char is not fun for me anymore, so I just don't roll a fortress char.

What comes to my mind as the best example of the players that I had fun with, were pre-fortress/scarab, when both were religions and characters from both sides were out whipping ass because it was a fun role to play.

Fun for me is not something that is so completely newbie friendly that they don't have to put in any effort. And just so there is no confusion, I'm not being an elitist about this. I don't think someone should have know all of a ####ing cabals back history, past players, yada yada, or jump through hoops. Just demonstrate that you have put some depth and effort into your character and that you are willing to try. I generally am an easy induction into a cabal if I have leadership, I'm willing to give someone a trial run, but if I'm not satisfied you get the boot. However, these days if you do that, people generally don't try to evaluate where they went wrong they delete and then piss and moan about how you ruined their fun and "come on its just a game man!".

Me saying that you need someone to be able to retrieve is not the same as saying that raid/retrieve is the only fun thing about being in a cabal.

Me saying that you need a way to thin things down is not the same as saying that I don't like interviewing. Take real life. I like interviewing. But I still need a way to make numbers manageable. No applicant has the right to say to me "It's your job to interview". My job is to do what seems reasonable.

Having thought about this, here are some more reasons:

- decrease in serious character longevity. If you have a caballed character and they have a bad day (get ganked and full looted, say) you are more likely to delete if you know you can cabal another easily.

- decreased disincentive not to screw with people (e.g. as a trib). So you get chucked out? Big deal. You can just get a new char in.

- I want to have fun. Hey, my pk range doesn't look so fun, because the other cabal has more people. Solution? I'll just get a char into another cabal quickly and play that. Won't be hard. More fun for me.

When I have led a cabal, I have re-inducted players that screwed up, if they showed they genuinely were sorry.

However, some players pretend they were sorry, don't get re-inducted within 10 hours, and then delete over it because they think that they'll never be re-inducted, whereas in fact, I've already got imm agreement that I can re-induct them.

From a leader perspective, there's nothing more annoying than when 2/3 of your applications delete pre-40. Interviewing, even in a cabal like Fortress, is really time consuming and sadly there's a lot of people who delete cuz they got pk'd twice at level 28.

I could see why a leader wouldn't want to be bothered with lowbies.

I mean, all those cabal powers aren't set at level 40 for a reason.

Exception to the rule: Scion. Given the unique nature of that cabal I can understand pushing off low level people if the leader so chooses.

Firstly, you have lots of applicants, and can't take them all, so you need a broad way to slim them down quickly.

Secondly, there's not a great deal of point wasting time on some guy that will be too weak to retrieve.

Thirdly, you need someone that will at least be able to play a part in defenses of the item of power (where most raiders will be heroes).

Fourthly, I can't be arsed spending my time interviewing people that haven't shown at least a modicum of persistency. I don't want to spend an hour with each guy just to have them auto-delete.

Want into an easy cabal? Then pick a relatively easy cabal.

And are the exact mentality that the original poster is talking about which is detrimental to joining cabals (for fun).

A cabal full of people who aren't in it for the long haul will be more likely to have "bandwagoners". There's enough band-wagoning going on as it is.

Personally I think the worst thing about cabals is mass logging in and out. With more members, it would likely swing even more severely.

I'm not sure where you get your theories or stats, but I've been on the upside - and ironically enough, with fewer members, you have (as I've witnessed countless times) people logging in and being the only person on within the cabal. This will almost definately lead to a shorter login time. There are some that even logoff immediately, a cause you said of more people in the cabal... generally speaking, if there are alot of people on in *each* cabal (and by alot, I'm gonna go with 4 or 5) people stick around and see what's gonna happen. Hell, what better way to get that sweet, sweet loot than to follow the higher members of your cabal around?

Oh, and yes, this is also from time to time where you find the true hardcore people who will stick around all by their lonesome and do what needs to be done - And those guys often get the titles, rewards, quest skills, etc. Not everyone has that sort of time, though. Stop making a cabal sound more than it is - As Daevryn said, those skills have specific levels for a reason, and the minimum isn't 30 for any of them.

>A cabal full of people who aren't in it for the long haul
>will be more likely to have "bandwagoners". There's enough
>band-wagoning going on as it is.
>
>Personally I think the worst thing about cabals is mass
>logging in and out. With more members, it would likely swing
>even more severely.

Some of the examples you've given were from when lowbies could prevent a raid by being the first to grab the item when it fell.

There's no equivalent now.

The easier you make it to get into a cabal, the lower the standard is going to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against newbs joining, but I want to see that they really want to be in the cabal. Even not being in the cabal itself, they can still involve themselves with the people in it, learn from them, and eventually get in.

I know after my 5 year absense I caballed my first char, but it took a long time. And that, to me, made it feel that much more of an achievement.

Making something challenging is part of the fun. That's why not every paladin can have defiance, etc. Because that which becomes too easy becomes devalued.

I'd sooner see the "history" aspect of cabals ditched, or at least see people given pointers to where they can find things out, than see them get in at low level.

Do you honestly believe that you won't see, for example, more tribunal abuses if you let people into the cabal at really low level? If people know they can get in easily, then there is less price to pay when you screw around with people, because you invested less beforehand. The vast majority will be fine, but the minority that do do this kind of thing will be larger.

>The easier you make it to get into a cabal, the lower the
>standard is going to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against
>newbs joining, but I want to see that they really want to be
>in the cabal. Even not being in the cabal itself, they can
>still involve themselves with the people in it, learn from
>them, and eventually get in.

There's a *huge* difference between newb and lowbie. One has to do with experience overall, the other has to do with simply in game experience. These shouldn't be lumped together.

>I know after my 5 year absense I caballed my first char, but
>it took a long time. And that, to me, made it feel that much
>more of an achievement.
>
>Making something challenging is part of the fun. That's why
>not every paladin can have defiance, etc. Because that which
>becomes too easy becomes devalued.

Cabals are not comparable to unique progged items.

>Do you honestly believe that you won't see, for example, more
>tribunal abuses if you let people into the cabal at really low
>level? If people know they can get in easily, then there is
>less price to pay when you screw around with people, because
>you invested less beforehand. The vast majority will be fine,
>but the minority that do do this kind of thing will be
>larger.

I do honestly believe that I won't see it, because since the beginning of time, Tribunal and its incarnations have been the MOST monitored cabals as far as abuse. Imms are pretty damn quick to uninduct/slay/purge/ban Tribunals that cross the line.

You called me elitist. That suggests I have issues with "non-elite" players. i.e. newbs.

In fact, I just like to see some dedication.

Uhh, I'm pretty sure no one is saying make the requirements to get into a cabal easier. Nope. Never read that.

The discussion we're having here is about minimum level requirements.

As for achievements, in my opinion, it's a much greater achievement to have a full life of being cabaled and being successful at it.

No. I don't think people would abuse cabal powers more. That's an individual thing.

P.S. I've retrieved cabal items with a level 22 healer solo before, with sub-par equipment. I've also retrieved with sub-level 20 melee classes also. Just because you can't, doesn't mean other people can't. So, please




"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire."

How is lowering a requirement not making things easier?

It's a lot easier for someone to rp well for the first 10 hours of their life, than to do it for an extended time.

Level requirements have nothing to do with how well someone RP's the cabal beliefs. You still have to have the same understanding and direction whether you're level 11 or level 40.

Level has nothing to do with dedication, or how well someone RP's. That's a player misconception. And it's the one we've been arguing is detrimental to cabal play.

Level is correlated with time.

And keeping something up over time shows some kind of dedication.

If I can see some poor guy is trying really hard to level and keeps eating mob-deaths, or can't get a group, then I'll make an exception. Similarly, if he powers to 35 (assuming this happens to be the requirement for cabal X) and I saw him at level 2 3 days earlier, I'm going to make him jump through some hoops anyway. At the very least, I want to see him work to further the cabal's goals for a bit.

That involves him in the cabal scene, and allows the cabal to form a judgement. Induction doesn't, to me, seem essential to the whole thing. Obviously a lot of people would like easier induction, but personally, I see some pretty shabby stuff that has nothing to do with being new in some cabals, and people rarely get booted. Take fortress for example. You generally have to do something evil to get the boot. Being a complete wuss that doesn't rp particularly well won't tend to be serious enough. (No, I'm not saying that fortress are wusses that can't rp, Noldruk. I think you can get my point if you try.)

Uhh, if you play CF, that's dedication enough for me. Not number of hours per character.

What you're talking about may negatively influence the player who only has time to log onto CF maybe 2-3 times a week, if that. And yes, they should get equal opportunities to play in cabals also, given that their time spent logged in is worthwhile.

What you actually mean isn't "equal opportunities", but in fact that they should be inducted in less time.

If a person who only player 2 hours a week gets inducted at 40 hours (say) and deletes at 200 hours (say), then they will have just as much time in a cabal as someone that plays 10 hours a week and gets inducted at 40 hours before deleted at 200 hours.

The only difference is that more rl time will elapse. But I don't see why that should be a problem, since more real time will elapse -after- you get into the cabal too.

>Firstly, you have lots of applicants, and can't take them
>all, so you need a broad way to slim them down quickly.

If they all roleplay well, why can't you take them all?

>Secondly, there's not a great deal of point wasting time on
>some guy that will be too weak to retrieve.

You've gotta define "too weak" because I've seen heroes that tuck their tail between their legs and don't touch that outer guardian. Are they "too weak"? Wouldn't that level 25 be real helpful? Of course he is, and that's why you call on him to go fight the outer - but wait.. he doesn't have any cabal powers and might even die. Oh ####, well.. atleast we know he's too weak and we made the right choice in not inducting him. God knows we don't want people who are willing to die for their ideals.
(the above is a common, yet nonspecific situation that applies to every cabal)

>Thirdly, you need someone that will at least be able to play a
>part in defenses of the item of power (where most raiders will
>be heroes).

Why? When your two heroes get smacked by the 5 raiders, who's going to loot you but them? Maybe that level 25 could have, but damn, he's out trying to rank up and impress you with quotes from the Lyceum.

>Fourthly, I can't be arsed spending my time interviewing
>people that haven't shown at least a modicum of persistency.
>I don't want to spend an hour with each guy just to have them
>auto-delete.

I'm not sure what being arsed means, but I can tell you that having had a few leaders, along with countless elders and simply helpful interviewers, you got the job, so act it.

Interestingly enough, I had originally just put "Cabal prerequisites" as the subject, nothing more - It wasn't until I had finished typing it last night that I added the second part - Thanks for proving me wise in doing that.

I haven't proved you right at all.

I'm not leading a cabal.

"I'm not sure what being arsed means, but I can tell you that having had a few leaders, along with countless elders and simply helpful interviewers, you got the job, so act it.

Interestingly enough, I had originally just put "Cabal prerequisites" as the subject, nothing more - It wasn't until I had finished typing it last night that I added the second part - Thanks for proving me wise in doing that."

You got the job does not mean you should have to do nothing but interview. Personally I interviewed several applicants today, and they all got my recommendation. They are not all experienced players. So don't try to claim I'm elitist.

I do, however, look for some dedication. Writing a note and turning up to a short interview proves nothing.

Rather than call me elitist, perhaps consider that anyone -can- impress me, but some people just can't be bothered. Who would I rather have on my side? I don't demand abs knowledge. I don't demand high kill count. I just demand a positive attitude that won't disappear when things get tough. Is that too much to ask?

Not sure if you think the game would be more fun if people could never loot their kills, because of hordes of lowbies doing it first, but I don't. There's as much chance of dying and being full looted by lowbies as having said lowbies save your gear when you were outnumbered.

>I haven't proved you right at all.
>
>I'm not leading a cabal.
>

If you're not leading a cabal, that's my mistake then, and I apologize for lumping you in that group. Though those four or five reasons where you were defending something that didn't need defending made me think otherwise. In any case, the root of my little rant was simply that cabal requirements on *level* shouldn't be what they are.. dedication, a good role, coherency in speech, those were all things I looked for when I'd induct people - not X level, because when it boils down to it, the sooner people can have fun, the better overall the experience ingame becomes. How many times have people deleted empowerment chars because they never got to talk to their immortal in the 2 or 3 weeks they'd try? I'd say since the beginning of the 3rd age when empowerment classes began, its been a ####load. Does that mean they weren't dedicated? No.. it means that the FUN part of that role that they created wasn't getting to shine. They were being forced to "grind". I understand, to an extent, what you're saying about not wanting just any old schmoe inducted, but in those couple interviews you did, no matter how long the ACTUAL interview took, how many of the ones you actually deep down approved of, took more than ten minutes to impress you?

I'm not stupid.. and most cabal leaders aren't, either - You can tell when you have a solid applicant on your hands in the first few minutes of the interview. And the other folks that you can tell have potential.. well.. that's part of being a leader. No, you shouldn't have to do nothing but interview, but you should also not put off your duty as a leader and tell anyone who asks about joining to come back when they're well above the Immortal's requirements for joining a cabal. Hell, it seriously used to only be that you had to be in PK range, now it's like most leaders want you to have among your most powerful skills. (assassinate for assassins, bloodlust for APS..etc.)

Seriously.. what ever happened to people joining a cabal and GROWING within that cabal? You want that newbie to learn, induct the ####er for thinking up a decent role and take him under your wing.

Oy.. where's the Excedrin.
Am I alone in this (aside from you, Daevryn) all you old schoolers?

N.

It sounds like you might be painting everybody with the same brush by generalizing the tendencies of the few (one?) onto the entire population of leaders. There are clearly cabals that, based upon their burgeoning numbers alone, are not terribly difficult to get into. This is true despite some of them having more "hoops" than "harrass leader." If there's a leader that is requiring level-mins you have quite a few options, the clearest of which is "don't play that cabal." I generally dislike it when cabals require something beyond "harrass leader," but I can see the rationale a lot of times in requiring something more. That "go-to-the-Lyceum-and-read-books-about-village-history" requirement for Battle, though, is clearly retarded. As is the set-in-stone-two-recommendations requirement that they've been subjecting the playerbase to for YEARS.

>It sounds like you might be painting everybody with the same
>brush by generalizing the tendencies of the few (one?) onto
>the entire population of leaders. There are clearly cabals
>that, based upon their burgeoning numbers alone, are not
>terribly difficult to get into. This is true despite some of
>them having more "hoops" than "harrass leader." If there's a
>leader that is requiring level-mins you have quite a few
>options, the clearest of which is "don't play that cabal." I
>generally dislike it when cabals require something beyond
>"harrass leader," but I can see the rationale a lot of times
>in requiring something more. That
>"go-to-the-Lyceum-and-read-books-about-village-history"
>requirement for Battle, though, is clearly retarded. As is the
>set-in-stone-two-recommendations requirement that they've been
>subjecting the playerbase to for YEARS.

Well, I'm not exactly speaking from the experience with every single leader - true, but the last 3 characters I've created (last 2 months or so), with 3 different leaders, each had similiar level requirements, all above 30. I'm more attacking the idea behind it than any cabal or leader in particular.. It's simply a trend I don't want to see become all encompassing.

And I'm getting tired of this hardass mentality some people (the playerbase) have around here. It's whatever on the forums, but it carries over into the game way too much. I think people need to lighten up over cabal inductions. People hype it up to be way more than what it is.




"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire."

.

Seems like various leadership doesn't want to put in the required effort in interviewing/inducting... but I can see why - is doing all that stuff fun when people delete too early? I'm not sure what the answer is here.

nt

I'm with you as well. That's been a big annoyance for me for years now. Granted I've been pretty much gone for years, but this whole thing started BEFORE I left. I too remember when you only had to be within pk range to be inducted. I remember being inducted into Servents of Dawn (my first ever caballed char) and too low a level to even access my first cabal power. I was so new at the time that it took me a long time just to reach pk range. When I saw that I couldn't reach my first power yet, it really inspired me to rank quickly to get to it. And then, of course, I continued to be inspired to reach all those others that were sill above me. Did this detract at all from how I roleplayed? Not at all. It simply kept something fun and exciting before me, in addition to the RP. Let's face it, while it's true that RP is what makes this game fun for most people (and I'm just as much a hardcore roleplay fanatic as anyone), it's not the ONLY thing about the game that's fun. And frankly, when I play a character who's shooting for a cabal, I don't want to spend all my RL time for a week or longer ranking up to lvl 30 and making sure that I'm on long enough to find someone to interview with when there are so few numbers to choose from.

Concerning the raid/retrieve dynamic there is more to be done than being able to strike the inner, or even take the blows from the outer, and the applicant's level capability in doing so should by no means be a determining factor in his induction. Looking back to some of my pre-20 caballed chars, when there was cabal raid, it was expected that ALL members of the cabal would be present, regardless of whether or not they could assist directly in the raid/defense. In the case of raiding, this meant assisting against the outer while one of the higher members took the blows. In the case of defense, this meant being there to kill any other young ones who might come along to assist against the outer, or to loot the fallen, ally and enemy alike. Back then, being looted by the enemy when you failed a raid was simply part of the consequence of failure. Not that I think everyone should be full looted, mind you, and ultimately, the one who made the kill should decide if his fallen foe's gear is to be returned or used to bolster another of his allies who lacks it. With corpseguard, looting the fallen beyond pk is now less of an issue, but still somewhat achievable in certain situations. (I don't think being a cabal alley bypasses corpseguard, but I could be wrong, having never had the chance to loot a fellow cabalmate's kill since it went in.)

Aside from looting and raid/retrieve action, there is still much more to cabal politics. Younger members can still be hunting the cabal's enemies. It's true they can (and should) be doing this even before induction. However, from a practical standpoint, it becomes much easier to do this from WITHIN the cabal than from without. From a roleplay standpoint/player viewpoint its far more encouraging to do this from within the cabal than it is from without. This is especially true since the members of the cabal and the leader who will do the induction can't be watching the applicant all the time to see that they are indeed doing it. However, if he has already been inducted, he's likely to be talking about his hunting/killing over the cb, and any cabal imms who might be watching will be more likely to note that this guy is not living up to the expectations of the cabal, and will act accordingly. Conversely, it's rather hard for him to focus on hunting the cabal's enemies when he has to level up so high just to be considered for induction. Using battle as an example, an applicant who has to reach lvl 30 before he even has a hope of induction isn't going to be wasting his time killing mages when he can't get anything to help him in that goal until then anyway. Instead, he's going to be spending all his time trying to rank up to that level so 1.) he can actually SEE his enemy, 2.) will have spellbane/resist so his mage foe can't just rape him because he has no access to magical preps for dealing with his foe. Now I don't believe that spellbane/resist are a must for killing magi even without other preps, they just help. However, being able to SEE your enemy IS a must. Conversely, if he doesn't have to rank up to 30 before even being inducted, it's just that much sooner that he can stop worrying about reaching a point where induction in an option, and can start focussing more on hunting his foe and roleplaying his cabal role in a more significant way than making claims and statements about it to his groupmates while they rank. (As an aside, I personally think truesight should be the FIRST power a rager gets, rather than spellbane. Deflecting your enemy's spells is not so important when you can't SEE him in order to attack him in the first place. Also, why deflect spells at low levels when you can just bash him into the ground anyway?)

Frankly, I have alot more fun with caballed characters when I can begin investing in the cabal earlier rather than later. Similarly, I'm far less likely to delete a caballed character than I am to delete a character whom I have to spend weeks trying to get him inducted. By the time he finally gets inducted, I've already begun to get bored with him from all the time spent trying to rank up without any significant roleplay beyond, "I trust you won't be using any magic around me while we travel!" or "Aye, I'll join you, just don't be bringing any filthy magi along!" In the case of my rager characters, the exception to this dynamic is when I'm playing a svirf, or an assassin, since in those cases, I can see my foes right from the beginning and can start racking up kills right away. The most fun I've ever had on this game is when I can run around pk'ing, and using it to initiate roleplaying interaction with my enemies.

As usual, my post has run on MUCH longer than I ever inteded it, so I'll just cut it off there.

I don't have a problem with level 11's getting inducted. I do have a problem with suck being inducted and then never being UNinducted because it might "spoil someone's fun". And generally speaking I am always considerate of the other guy having a good time.

Out of many.


Who makes a better ic rager, at hero.


One inducted at 15, makes a few mistakes, but through cabal relations with his elders learns the right way to do things, the right way how to behave like a rager?


Or the one inducted at 40, who spent all his time power ranking to "impress" someone like you, and hasn't spent any time learning the current "social climate" of the cabal?


I'm going to say that the first one will end up the better rager.


As most groups in the real world have found out. If you get them young and teach them *YOUR* way, they will behave how they have been trained.


Induct them young, and teach them by example how to be a good rager/empirial/tribby/maran....

Or show them that lvling is the most important thing by making them rank up to near 40 before induction, and just expect everyone ooc to already know how to be a good rager/empirial/tribby/maran

...is that for like the first 10 years of CF's existence ranking beyond a certain point before seeking induction was considered a negative. I think the common logic during that time period was that if you wait until 40-51 to seek induction you've shirked hours of cabal raid & defense responsibilities. It's easier to rank, collect a phat set, not die when you're not in a cabal so requiring somebody to rank to hero before inducting them just releases them from any responsibility they may have otherwise had to endure. For all cabals except Battle I'd actually prefer to rank to hero before getting induction. The only reason I'd not want to do that for Battle is because going my whole life without preps (particularly detect invis) would be a pain.

I've had to be imm-ducted before because of that restriction, but I like it.

However, everyone that I've recommended at hero, I know for a fact is at war with all of our enemies, because I've watched them in action.

nt

There are other ways of looking at this.

Powerranking would not impress me. If you power ranked, you'd fall short on other aspects, most likely.

That said, taking some time and dealing with some magi (even if taking a beating first) when magi are not generally outpowered by warriors, shows a willingness to take the downside of the cabal and not just a powergamer.